The Catholic Church is a grand fact in history—a fact so great that there would be no history without it—a fact permanent, repeating itself perpetually, entering into the concerns of all the nations on the face of the earth, appearing again and again on the records of time, and benefiting, perceived or unperceived, directly or indirectly, socially, morally, and supernaturally, every individual who forms part of the great organism of human society.
Around this Church human society moves like a wheel around its axle; it is on this Church that society depends for its support, its life, its energy, like the planetary system on the sun. Show me an age, a country, a nation deprived of the influence of Catholicity, and I will show you an age, a country, a nation without morals, without virtue. Yes, if "Religion and Science, Liberty and Justice, Principle and Right," are not empty sounds—if they have a meaning—they owe their energetic existence in the world to the Catholic Church.
Such is the power and such is the influence of Catholicity. Yet I do not pretend that our Catholic population is perfect, or that in them you will find no shortcomings, nothing to be censured or regretted. Certainly in our cities and large towns may be found, I am sorry to say, many so-called liberal or nominal Catholics, who are no credit to their religion, to the land of their birth, or to that of their adoption. Subjected at home, as they were, to the restraints imposed by Protestant or quasi-Protestant governments, they feel, on coming here, that they are loosed from all restraints, and forgetting the obedience they owe to their pastors, to the prelates whom the Holy Ghost has placed over them, they become insubordinate, and live more as non-Catholics than as Catholics. The children of these are, to a great extent, shamefully neglected, and suffered to grow up without the simplest moral and religious instruction, and to become recruits to our vicious population, our rowdies and our criminals. This is certainly to be deplored, but can easily be explained without prejudice to the influence of Catholicity, by adverting to the condition to which those individuals were reduced before coming here; to their disappointments and discouragements in a strange land; to their exposure to new and unlooked-for temptations; to the fact that they were by no means the best of Catholics even in their native countries; to their poverty, destitution, ignorance, insufficient culture, and a certain natural shiftlessness and recklessness, and to our great lack of schools, churches, and priests. The proportion, however, that these bear to our whole Catholic population, is far less than is commonly supposed, and they are not so habitually depraved as they appear, for they seldom or never consult appearances, and have little skill in concealing their vices. As low and degraded as this class of our Catholic population may be, they never are so low or so vicious as the corresponding class of non-Catholics in every nation. A non-Catholic vicious class is always worse than it appears; a Catholic vicious class is less bad. In the worst there is always some germ that, with proper care, may be nursed into life, that may blossom and bear fruit. Yet, if we look at the Catholic population as it is, and is every year becoming, we cannot but be struck with its marvellous energy and progress. We will find that population more intellectual, more cultivated, more moral, more active, living, and energetic than any other.
The Catholic population of this country, taken as a body, have a personal freedom, an independence, a self-respect, a conscientiousness, a love of truth, and a devotion to principle, not to be found in any other class of American citizens. Their moral tone, as well as their moral standard, is far higher, and they act more uniformly under a sense of deep responsibility to God and their country. They are the most law-loving and law-abiding people. The men of that population are the most vigorous, and the hardiest; their virgins are the chastest; their matrons the most faithful. Catholics do, as to the great majority, act from honest principle, from sincere and earnest conviction, and are prepared to die sooner than in any grave matters swerve from what they regard as truth and justice. They have the principle and the firmness to stand by what they believe true and just, in good report and evil report, whether the world be with them or be against them. Among Catholics you will not find the flunkeyism which Carlyle so unmercifully ridicules in the middling classes of Great Britain, or that respect to mere wealth, that worship of the money-bag, or that base servility to the mob, or public opinion, so common and so ruinous to public and private virtue in the United States.
The mental activity of Catholics, all things considered, is far more remarkable than that of our non-Catholic countrymen; and, in proportion to their numbers and means, they contribute far more than any other class of American citizens to the purposes of education, both common and liberal, for they receive little or nothing from the public treasury; and in addition to supporting numerous schools of their own, they are forced to contribute their quota to the support of those of the State. Thus, to take a single illustration, the public school-tax in Cincinnati for last year amounted to $810,000. Of this the Catholics—such is their proportion in that community—contributed $230,000, or more than one-third of the whole rate. This large sum—£162,000—goes to the management and formation of schools which the Catholics of Cincinnati are debarred, by their consciences, from entering. They have therefore their own schools, which they have built, and support entirely at their own expense, without any assistance whatever from the State. The education which they give is known to be excellent; but it is based on religion, and is not controlled by the State and paid officials. The consequence is, that not only are they not encouraged, but they are actually taxed by the State.
Thus, for instance, the Cathedral School is obliged to pay to the State an annual tax of £120, and the schools of another parish £200. The Catholics of the Cathedral Parish have not only to pay the State school-tax, and the heavy tax laid on their school-buildings, but they have to find $3,500 annually to meet the current school expenses. All this has to be collected by the clergy as best they can.
The non-Catholic has no conception of the treasure the Union possesses in these thirteen millions of Catholics, humble in their outward circumstances as the majority of them may be. A true, high-toned, chivalric national character will be formed, and a true, generous, and lofty patriotism will be generated and sustained in proportion as the force of Catholicity is brought to bear upon our American people, and the life of practical Catholics falls into the current of American life. Catholics have their faults and shortcomings, yet they are the salt of the American community, and the really conservative element in the American population. In a few years they will be the Americans of the Americans, and on them will rest the performance of the glorious work of sustaining American civilization, and realizing the hopes of the founders of our great and growing Republic.
It must, then, be evident to every true lover of the Republic, that the State, were it at liberty to favor any particular portion of the community, should favor its conservative element—the Catholics—instead of robbing Catholics of millions of dollars, to continue, by godless education, the impious work for the increase of the number of enemies of the Republic; it should rather supply Catholics with the means to bring up their children in the spirit of true freedom—in the spirit of devotedness to republican institutions. But as the State is neither Catholic nor Protestant, it should at least act justly and impartially; it should not favor its own enemies; it should not make a lie or a farce of our glorious Constitution; it should no longer play the usurper and the robber; it should no longer continue digging its own grave; it should not tax Catholics any longer to support infidel institutions—nurseries of all kinds of crimes—and thus continue to violate most atrociously the very letter and spirit of the Constitution, and to commit a direct outrage on the most sacred convictions of Catholics.
It is the well-instructed practical Catholic that is alone capable of appreciating and realizing true freedom. Ever foremost to concede the rights of God, ever careful to trench on the rights of his fellow-creatures, he is, for all this (and precisely because of this), well aware of his own rights and dignity as a man, as a citizen, and as a baptized Christian—a regenerated son of God—and, knowing his rights and dignity, he dares maintain them! He protests against godless education as a volcano that is destined to bury law and authority, and bring about universal anarchy, and prepare and establish the reign of antichrist. We must, then, have separate schools to educate our rising generation in a religious atmosphere, and imbue them with the principles of Christianity. All those who oppose any longer the denominational system, in any manner whatsoever, are traitors to the Republic and the worst enemies of the country, and from henceforth the vengeance of God will not be slow to overtake them. On the contrary, he who will be first and foremost in promoting this noblest of objects—the establishment of denominational schools—may truly be called the saviour of the Republic,—the father of his country; he will be as great, nay, even greater, than Washington himself. Upon him the blessings of heaven will descend in superabundance, and his name will be blessed from generation to generation.